Amazon Announces Big Fall eBook Releases

Amazon just released a special “Fall Books Preview” page, highlighting the best upcoming books “In anticipation of a season of blockbuster authors and dazzling new voices…” You can pre-order all of them now, and it looks like a pretty impressive list! I don’t normally get excited about new releases, these are authors that I’ve actually heard of — including Stephen King, Michael Lewis, and Neal Stephenson! And there’s also some tantalizing new mystery/thriller books coming out from authors like John Grisham, Janet Evanovich, and Sue Grafton…

“We hope our customers are as excited about our Fall Books Preview list as we are…” said Chris Schluep, one of the senior book editors at Amazon — and I couldn’t help noticing their “upcoming” highlights include some of the best-selling authors on the Kindle. This fall will see new books by Nora Roberts, Michael Connelly, and Lee Child, which is significant. They’re three of only eight authors who have already sold more than one million ebooks in Amazon’s Kindle Store!

Michael Connelly is releasing a new “Harry Bosch” mystery on November 28 called The Drop — and thanks to pre-order sales, it’s already become one of the top-400 best-selling books on Amazon! (The Kindle edition will cost the same as the hardcover edition — $14.98 — and the audiobook version will cost nearly $20!) And Lee Child will also release a new novel about her own detective, Jack Reacher, this one called “The Affair” (available September 27). At this moment, it’s the #71 best-selling book on Amazon — again, due entirely to pre-orders.

But Nora Robert is actually releasing two new books this fall — under two different names! She’ll release The Next Always (the first book in her “Inn BoonsBoro” trilogy) on November 1, and its own pre-order sales have already pushed it to the #214 spot on Amazon’s list of the best-selling books. If you just can’t wait, she’s also publishing a thriller under her pseudoynum, J.D. Robb. It’s called New York to Dallas (In Death), and it’ll be released on September 13th. (Right now it’s ranked at #280 on Amazon’s list of the best-selling books, thanks again to pre-orders!)

Stephen King’s new book is called “11/22/1963,” and I like the way Amazon described it. “King has killed a lot of people in his novels. In this one, he sends a man back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy…” (It will be released, fittingly, in November…) And the new book by Neal Stephenson is called Reamde: A Novel, which Amazon describes as “a high-stakes espionage thriller about a wealthy tech entrepreneur caught in the very real crossfire of his own online fantasy war game!” (It’s available on September 20th.)

I’m really impressed with the way these books have stormed Amazon’s best-seller list — several months before they’ve even been released! On November 22nd, Janet Evanovich is publishing a new Stephanie Plum mystery called Explosive Eighteen, but it’s already one of the top 80 books on Amazon’s best-seller list. John Grisham’s also released a new legal thriller called The Litigator, and it’s currently in the #113 spot. Even Sue Grafton has a new Kinsey Millhone mystery coming out in November, called V is for Vengeance. There’s a lot to choose from!

“We love connecting readers with books we hope they’ll love,” Amazon said in a statement, “whether it’s a masterly literary debut, the perfect holiday cookbook, or the latest page-turner for those first chilly autumn nights.” The selections were made by the book editors at Amazon.com, who claim they’ve identified “the best fall titles for readers of all tastes across literature, mysteries, science fiction, nonfiction, children’s books and more.”